Holocaust Survivors Rap Senate’s Failure to Pass Genocide Treaty

While declaring appreciation to the U.S. government and Congress for its aid and support of Israel, the American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates and Nazi Victims in an all-day conference yesterday said it was “appalled” at the Senate’s failure to ratify the Genocide Convention. The several hundred delegates, Jewish survivors of the holocaust who met at the New York Hilton, also declared in its resolution that the Senate should pass the treaty because “it is in accord with the basic rights of American democracy.”

Eli Zborowski, president of the Survivors’ Federation, said that by adopting the treaty the U.S. would put its moral and legal stamp of approval on a law that would make wiping out a people an international crime. An attempt to pass the treaty this year failed because of a filibuster. The survivors also demanded that governments, including the U.S., bring Nazi criminals “who enjoy a free and secure life in many countries” to trial.

Rep. Ogden R. Reid (D.NY) told the conference that the U.S. government must show that Israel has “defensible borders” and “we have to provide Israel with necessary military and economic assistance to defend itself and deter any aggression. There can be no detente unless the Jews and other minorities are permitted to leave the Soviet Union.” Reid added. He said that if there should be any peace agreement with Syria, it should be made clear that Syria should not only return the Israeli POWs, but also permit the Jewish population of Syria (about 4000) which live in intolerable conditions and persecution, to leave the country.

Solomon Zynstein, chairman of the conference, said that the one-day session was called because the survivors believe “the world has shown the same indifference to the fundamental rights of Israel to live in peace and freedom as the world showed in World War II to the murder of innocent Jews by the Nazis.”

Zborowski said that “political and cultural leaders seem to already have forgotten the holocaust” and again “are indifferent to the plight of Jews. From this conference we will let go forth our plea to all people of good will, ‘do not sacrifice the Jew’ for whatever motive or reason. The Jew must no longer be expendable.” He also said survivors “see no difference between the Hitler Nazis and the Black September movement, both seek to destroy the Jewish people by killing innocent people.”

In other resolutions, the group called on “men of good will everywhere to help the thousands of helpless Jews in the Arab countries to emigrate” protested the Soviet Union’s discriminatory policy against Jews in Russia and called for the USSR to free the Jews who want to emigrate; declared “we will not rest until studies of the holocaust will become an integral part of Jewish education at every level”; and asserted “it would stand by Israel and support her.”

The Federation called on the organized Jewish community and its institutions “to join with us in the establishment of a Remembrance Center which will be dedicated to the strengthening of the awareness of the holocaust. The Center will also serve as a stimulus to further the education of Jewish youth in their studies of their heritage.” Declaring that they too “were victims of inhumanity” the survivors said they view gravely the inhuman acts of Syria against the Israeli POWs and called “on humanity not to remain silent in this violation of international law.”